Dr Sherylle Calder believes England (we) must ditch their (our) phones

Dr Sherylle Calder

Dr Sherylle Calder believes England must ditch their phones

Calder was part of the England World Cup-winning back-room team in 2003 and South Africa’s — alongside Jones — four years later.

She has also helped golfers, cricketers and Formula One drivers.

And the specialist, who started her EyeGym work with England’s Six Nations squad here in the Algarve yesterday, said: “In the modern world, the ability of players to have good awareness is deteriorating because of mobile phones.

“We will be working really hard on awareness because awareness makes you make effective decisions under pressure.

“We prepare the rest of the body to perform but the eyes and the brain — the response and decision-making system — we just put by the side.

“In F1, you can imagine how crucial that is.

“In the last five or six years, when we assess elite players in different sports there is a decline in skill levels.

“When you look at your phone you are losing awareness because you’re focused on the screen. There are no eye movements happening; everything is pretty static.

“We are losing the ability to communicate well.”

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